This year’s Military Frontiers conference showcases the scholarship of 12 graduate students, all of whom study topics relating to the management of force and power in international affairs. The conference is interdisciplinary; the presenters represent a range of academic fields, and their research is based in a variety of methodologies. By bringing together up-and-coming scholars in different fields working on similar topics, the conference aims to promote communication and cooperation across academic disciplines.

While all the papers to be presented share certain common themes, the subjects of the presentations are quite diverse. These include the cultural representation of gas masks in Germany during World War I, the relationship between the United Church of Christ and Apartheid-era South Africa, and conflicts among anti-Japanese guerrilla groups in the Philippines during World War II.

Keynote Address (Friday, April 28, at 2:30 p.m.)

Gary Sheffield, Professor of War Studies, University of Wolverhampton - "How The West Won World War I"

Gary Sheffield, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.Hist.S., F.R.S.A., is, with Stephen Badsey, co-director of the First World War Research Group. He was educated at the University of Leeds (B.A., M.A.) and King's College London, where he studied for his Ph.D. under the supervision of Brian Bond.

He started his academic career in the Department of War Studies, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, before moving to King's College London's Defence Studies Department, based at the Joint Services Command and Staff College, Shrivenham, where he was land warfare historian on the Higher Command and Staff Course, the UK's senior operational course for senior officers. Awarded a personal chair by KCL in 2005, he took up the newly-created Chair of War Studies at the University of Birmingham in 2006 before moving to the University of Wolverhampton in September 2013.

Abstract

In the last three months of 1918 the Western Allies finally defeated the Central Powers. Over the years, historians have been divided over the reasons for the Allied victory. In this lecture, Gary Sheffield argues that a combination of factors brought about the defeat of Germany and its allies. These include seapower; the greater resilience of the Allied home fronts; and the economic strengths and manpower of the British and French empires; the support of the United States, even before it formally became a belligerent; and, not least, the formidable military achievements of the armies of the British Empire.

Organizers

Mason Watson, Graduate Student, Department of History, The Ohio State University

Max von Bargen, Graduate Student, Department of History, The Ohio State University

Sponsors

Mershon Center for International Security Studies, Department of History, Society for Military History